News » Society » China factories at two-year high
News » Society » China factories at two-year high |
- China factories at two-year high
- Li stuns Sharapova to make final
- Have You Heard…
- Driverless PLA Lion roars along highway with sleep in mind
- The army is developing an unmanned road vehicle that could be put to civilian use to reduce fatigue at the wheel and allow drivers to "sleep in peace."
- Wider door for island visitors
- Burma learns to protest - against China
- Beijing sets stricter emission limit
- Melamine in bowls seep into bodies
- Xi calls for calm
- Liaoning feels the jolt but no casualties
- 'Dead' woman returns to life on day of funeral
- Man admits killing girl to get 'revenge on society'
- Report: Firm set sex traps to lure officials
- China says top 10 steel mills to control 60 percent of capacity by 2015
- China Clean-Air Bid Faces Resistance
- North Korea to boost nuclear deterrent after U.N. rebuke
- Philippines Challenges China Maritime Claims at UN Tribunal
- Australia Makes Another Pitch to China
- Best photos from Wiltshire Let’s Get Naked In The Snow
| China factories at two-year high Posted: 23 Jan 2013 08:04 PM PST Manufacturing activity in China expands at its fastest pace in two years in January, according to preliminary survey data from HSBC. |
| Li stuns Sharapova to make final Posted: 23 Jan 2013 08:18 PM PST China's Li Na produces a superb display to beat Maria Sharapova in straight sets and reach the Australian Open final. |
| Posted: 23 Jan 2013 08:13 AM PST Have You Heard…   |
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| Burma learns to protest - against China Posted: 23 Jan 2013 05:02 PM PST Lucy Ash visits the Chinese-backed copper mine that has sparked protests in Burma, putting Chinese investment in the South East Asian nation in the spotlight. |
| Beijing sets stricter emission limit Posted: 23 Jan 2013 09:49 AM PST BEIJING will enforce an equivalent of Euro V standard on new cars next month as the government is hard-pressed to improve the worsening air quality. Once the new standard comes into effect on February 1, it is expected to reduce nitrogen oxide emission by 40 percent. Beijing was choked by a hazardous smog from January 10 to 16 before a cold front brought some relief to the residents. However, the city's reading of PM2.5 - airborne particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter - rebounded to serious levels yesterday because of dense smog. The severe pollution has led to complaints that the city's air quality only depends on wind and rain. While tightening the emission standard on new cars, the Beijing government also said that gasoline and diesel that meets the new standard will be available in local gas stations from May 31. The new standard will apply to new cars that have yet to receive license plates, Xinhua news agency reported, citing Fang Li, vice director of the city's environment protection bureau. Vehicles currently in use will be exempted. The sale and registration of diesel vehicles that do not meet the new standard will be halted, Fang said. Sales of substandard gasoline cars are to be stopped as of March 1, Fang added. The city also plans to offer more incentives to help eliminate old cars from the roads. The city has already dumped 377,000 old cars. It has a target to ease a further 180,000 this year, according to Fang. Beijing has a permanent population of around 20 million and some 5.2 million vehicles, with the number of private cars still on the rise. That number will reach 6 million by 2015, Li Kunsheng, director of the bureau's vehicles management department, said. The Beijing weather bureau yesterday issued yellow alerts for both fog and smog, the third-highest level in China's four-tier weather warning system. At 9am, PM2.5 readings at most of the downtown monitoring stations exceeded 300 micrograms per cubic meter, far exceeding the national limit of 75 micrograms, according to the Beijing Environmental Monitoring Center. By mid-afternoon, air quality indices at most of the monitoring stations ranged from 311 to 400, a serious level. A thick cloud of airborne particles was spotted moving from the southeast into Beijing on Tuesday afternoon and covered the whole city yesterday morning. A resident of south Beijing, Wu Xiao, told Xinhua that she had bought a special mask from abroad for her son. Wu said the smog had sickened nearly her entire family. "My child has red eyes, my mother-in-law suffers from asthma and I also caught the 'Beijing cough,'" she said. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Melamine in bowls seep into bodies Posted: 23 Jan 2013 09:48 AM PST Melamine, a chemical that sickened and killed babies in China when it tainted baby formula, can also leach off tableware and into food, according to a study. But researchers, whose results appeared in JAMA Internal Medicine, warned that their findings don't prove that melamine is harmful to people in the amounts detected when study participants ate hot soup from melamine bowls. Large doses of melamine, which is used in some types of fertilizer and in resin used to make tableware, killed six babies in China and sent thousands more to the hospital with kidney damage in 2008. In high enough quantities, melamine can cause kidney stones and other kidney problems in adults. "Melamine tableware may release large amounts of melamine when used to serve high-temperature foods," wrote lead researcher Chia-Fang Wu from Kaohsiung Medical University. Monitored urine For the study, six people in their 20s ate hot soup for breakfast out of melamine bowls, while another six ate soup from ceramic bowls. Then, the researchers monitored participants' urine for the next 12 hours. Three weeks later, the two groups were reversed. For the rest of the day, the total melamine excreted in urine was 8.35 micrograms following a melamine bowl breakfast, compared to 1.31 micrograms after breakfast from a ceramic bowl. The study didn't measure any health effects possibly related to melamine, and it's not clear if those urine levels would lead to any long-term medical problems. Craig Langman, who studies kidney diseases in Chicago's Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, said that while the study raises interesting questions and concerns, it didn't prove anything. But he also said that research into the chemical's long-term biological effects should continue. "The babies who were poisoned because of their being young had very low kidney function to begin with," he said. "Clearly, poisoning acutely with this massive overload is different than long-term exposure. Melamine is approved in the US for use in the manufacturing of some cooking utensils, tableware, plastics and industrial coatings. |
| Posted: 23 Jan 2013 08:44 AM PST CHINESE leader Xi Jinping yesterday called for easing of tensions on the Korean Peninsula after meeting with Kim Moo-sung, the special envoy of South Korean President-elect Park Geun-hye. Xi said that maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula was in the fundamental interests of China and South Korea. He added that the problems have to be resolved by addressing both the symptoms and its root causes. |
| Liaoning feels the jolt but no casualties Posted: 23 Jan 2013 08:44 AM PST AN earthquake measuring 5.1 in magnitude jolted the border region of Liaoyang and Shenyang, in Liaoning Provonce at 12:18pm yesterday, the China Earthquake Networks Center said. The epicenter, with a depth of about 7 kilometer, was located near Liaoyang's county-level city of Dengta and Sujiatun District in Shenyang, provincial capital of Liaoning. Dengta Mayor Liu Wenlong said the government had not received any reports of casualties or house collapses. But cracks were spotted in some houses in few townships. There were also no casualties reported in Sujiatun either. Residents in Shenyang said they felt the quake, which lasted around 20 seconds. Netizens have uploaded photos and videos taken during and after the quake. "The furniture moved several centimeters to the corner of the room," posted a netizen called "Jianjiankangkang 2143273614" at weibo.com, with a photo of the table. An 11-second video captured the tremor of the quake. According to the China Earthquake Administration, people in Shenyang and its surrounding areas felt the strongest tremor. Other cities which reported tremors are Liaoyang, Jinzhou, Panjin, Tieling, Yingkou, Benxi, Fuxin and Chaoyang in Liaoning Province as well as the neighboring Jilin Province's Siping, Liaoyuan and Changchun cities. Mobile communication in areas around the epicenter were also affected. According to the local telecommunications company in the Wujiatun District, communication system, which had been disrupted due to the quake and the sudden jump among people making calls, was restored around 1pm after repairs. "No casualties have been reported so far. Haozitun Village was the hardest-hit area," said Duan Youwei, Party secretary of Liutiaozhai Township. Experts at the Liaoning Provincial Earthquake Bureau said quake-hit areas are unlikely to suffer a bigger earthquake in the short term. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| 'Dead' woman returns to life on day of funeral Posted: 23 Jan 2013 08:00 AM PST A 101-YEAR-OLD "dead" woman came back to life last Sunday, the day of her funeral, shocking her daughters and others in Guangdong Province, Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday. Peng Xiuhua, a widow living in Lianjiang City, fell nearly two weeks ago and became bed-ridden since then. Her two daughters returned home to take care of her. At around 10:30pm last Saturday, Peng's daughters found her body had turned stiff and they could not detect any breathing or heartbeat. They believed she had died, the newspaper said. They cried and called relatives and friends to attend the funeral the next day. After villagers cleaned the body before she was put into the coffin the next afternoon, the centenarian opened her eyes, smiled and said, "Here you come," her usual greeting, the paper reported. The villagers were shocked after Peng came to life. They then decided to throw a banquet by using the food prepared for her funeral. Peng's younger daughter Liu Meijuan told the newspaper that her mother lived alone and was able to take care of herself after her father died 11 years ago at the age of 101. Warm-hearted neighbors also frequently visited to do some housekeeping and cooking, said the 67-year-old Liu. |
| Man admits killing girl to get 'revenge on society' Posted: 23 Jan 2013 08:00 AM PST A 19-YEAR-OLD man who was caught by police in the southern city of Shenzhen for allegedly robbing and killing a 16-year-old girl told officers he did it to "take revenge on society." The death of the girl, Laiceng Yutong, has attracted wide public attention on the microblog weibo.com as she was reported missing on January 12, hours after she had posted details of where she would be. Many netizens believed her habit of posting her whereabouts may have led to her death as the killer could have known where she was going and ambushed her. Shenzhen police said they caught suspect Meng Shuai on Sunday. Meng told police he saw Laiceng walking home alone on January 12, and he grabbed her and took her to an empty shop to rob her, according to Shenzhen Television. But Meng told police he chose his target randomly and denied he found Laiceng based on her microblog, the TV report said. Meng told police he had been cheated in a pyramid scam and had a tense relationship with his family. He decided to rob others to make a living and strangled the girl to death after she resisted, the report said. Meng told police he killed Laiceng as a way to "take revenge on society" for all the "unfair treatment" he had received in life. Laiceng's relatives told Shenzhen Television that a woman had witnessed a man grabbing Laiceng. The woman rushed to a factory to get help from a security guard. The guard told her it was none of his business and no one called the police, the relatives told the TV station. |
| Report: Firm set sex traps to lure officials Posted: 23 Jan 2013 08:00 AM PST A COMPANY in Chongqing Municipality has been accused of setting sex traps for senior government officials to gain engineering contracts worth millions of yuan. Chongqing Yonghuang Group videotaped at least six officials, including the sacked Beibei District Party Secretary Lei Zhengfu, having sex with the same woman, Zhao Hongmei, Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday. Unnamed insiders told the paper that Lei, who feared being disclosed by others, chose to confess his love affair to police. This led to an investigation into Yonghuang, Zhao's employer, in November 2009, the report said. However, Chongqing police tried to sweep the case under the rug as an insider told the newspaper the sex tapes were concealed and Xiao Ye, one of Yonghuang's founders, was only detained for about six months for disturbing public order. Five other officials implicated by sex tapes were not disciplined while some were even promoted until investigative reporter Zhu Ruifeng uploaded a sex video online in November 2012 that led to Lei's downfall. Zhu has said that since the case returned to the headlines, police had once again detained Xiao and then transferred him to prosecutors. Authorities haven't confirmed Zhu's story or said whether the other five officials involved, including a district head and a city government office chief, had been punished. The report said Xiao, Yan Peng and Wang Jianjun orchestrated love traps to extort lucrative engineering contracts. Yonghuang had hired at least three pretty women, including Zhao, 31, to entice senior officials. The women used a pinhole video camera hidden in their handbag to record the sex acts and Zhao had taken the most footage, sources told the paper. Xiao, Wang, Yan and other men would then break into the room and confront the official, insiders said. Yonghuang gained several engineering projects worth tens of millions of yuan by threatening to publish the sex tapes, the paper revealed. The report said it was unknown whether Yonghuang had been punished. But documents showed it just won two renovation projects worth a combined 3.15 million yuan in November, the paper said. The paper also said Zhao was paid 40,000 yuan (US$6,427) after every "assignment." She met Xiao in 2007 and was once his mistress, the report said. |
| China says top 10 steel mills to control 60 percent of capacity by 2015 Posted: 23 Jan 2013 08:17 AM PST
(Reuters) – China, the world's largest steel producer, aims to bring around 60 percent of total steel capacity under the control of its top 10 steel mills by 2015 as part of a wide-ranging plan to restructure its industries. It said it would also seek to bring 90 percent of automobile production under the control of its top 10 firms by the end of 2015 as well as 90 percent of aluminum production capacity. The government also plans to cut the number of firms involved in the exploration, smelting and separation of rare earths over the next three years. Around half of China's total steel capacity is now owned by the 10 biggest steel firms following previous restructuring programs, but Beijing has struggled to overcome obstructionism and red tape from local bureaucracies, or change the economic incentives that have allowed small and private mills to thrive. "It is still quite difficult to consolidate and the key issue remains the local governments — they remain big supporters of steel mills," said Henry Liu, head of commodity research at Mirae Asset Securities in Hong Kong. Overcapacity has been identified as one of the biggest problems facing the sector and the reason why profit margins remain perilously thin. Chi Jingdong, vice-secretary general of the China Iron and Steel Association, told a conference in December that total steel capacity now stands at 980 million metric tons — a surplus of nearly 300 million tons. ENVIRONMENTAL CURBS China said last month that it would also winnow down the number of small and private mills by raising environmental requirements, forcing steel producers to improve efficiency and install new equipment. According to new guidelines included in a "five-year plan" to combat pollution, steel mills will not be permitted to build new capacity in 47 large cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing. While the new rules are likely to increase environmental costs, the majority of small and profitable private mills are likely to have the resources to upgrade and — if necessary — relocate, but most have already done so, said Liu. Analysts say market forces are likely to be the determining factor in the end, and while the faltering economy has hurt the industry, officials have said it could also be a blessing if it puts the minnows under more pressure to restructure. But Liu said conditions were still not bad enough to force some of the smaller players out of business. "Even though we talk about the economic slowdown, the steel mills are fine — they are still making a decent return."   |
| China Clean-Air Bid Faces Resistance Posted: 23 Jan 2013 08:23 AM PST
BEIJING—China's government is facing stiff resistance from sprawling state-owned corporations and local interests in its bid to combat air pollution, in an early test for the nation's new leaders following some of the worst air-quality days in recent memory. Growing evidence suggests China's programs to cut emissions from coal-fired power plants—traditionally a major source of its massive pollution problems—have had some success. But that is being partly undermined by rapidly rising industrial output, such as coal-fueled steel production, and lagging fuel standards for China's ballooning numbers of cars and trucks. In addition, analysts say emission goals that target specific pollutants aren't enough to stem wider air-quality problems. "The potential of reduction for power plants is small," said Zhao Yu, who researches atmospheric pollutants at Nanjing University. If the government doesn't now pay attention to industrial and other sources of pollution, "overall emissions will continue to grow." Finding and tamping down pollution sources has become an imperative for China's new leaders, who have acknowledged they must appease an increasingly pollution-conscious public without undermining economic growth. The problem drew national headlines earlier this month when Beijing's levels of PM 2.5—tiny particulate matter harmful to human health—exceeded by more than 70 times what the U.S. considers a standard for health. On Tuesday, Beijing's acting mayor, Wang Anshun, pledged to remove 180,000 old vehicles from the roads and replace dirty coal-burning boilers in some Beijing homes, among efforts aimed at drawing down major air pollutants by 2% this year, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. Over the long term, drawing down emissions will require costly upgrades to industrial facilities and oil refineries, measures resisted by state-owned companies unable to pass costs on to consumers and local governments that depend on industrial output for revenue. China's two largest refiners—China Petrochemical Corp., known as Sinopec Group, and PetroChina Co. —both defend their environmental records, with Sinopec saying it has spent billions of dollars upgrading refineries. PetroChina said it complies with national quality requirements. A number of steelmakers didn't respond to requests for comment. Handling China's state-owned companies big and small will be a challenge to any effort by the new Chinese leadership under Xi Jinping to reform the economy. While they compete for capital and resources with the private sector, they are also major employers with politically connected leaders and often function as an instrument of Beijing's policy goals, giving them tremendous political sway. Though attention over the years has focused on power plants and passenger-car emissions, China's pollution problems are complex and spread broadly across the economy. Mr. Zhao, of Nanjing University, and a research team studied the effectiveness of Chinese government policies in curbing emissions between 2005 and 2010 and estimated PM2.5 from coal-fired power generation fell roughly 21% as cleaner technologies took hold. Meanwhile, PM2.5 emissions from iron and steel production rose roughly 39% to 2.2 million metric tons, according to the estimates, as output increased.
"They're succeeding at some of the big but simpler problems and really just getting started on more complicated secondary pollutant problems," said Chris Nielsen, another researcher on the project and executive director of Harvard's China Project, which focuses on the atmospheric environment. Steel production has grown steadily in recent years in China, and rose 3.1% in 2012, as the Chinese government invested heavily in roads, railways and other infrastructure to support economic growth. Unlike the power sector, the steel industry is fragmented and tougher to control, particularly with local governments relying on smaller, and often dirtier, mills. Smaller mills raised their output by nearly 20% in the first nine months of 2012 even as larger mills cut theirs by 2% amid a price drop. The government appears to be taking some steps to curb steel emissions. The latest industry blueprint from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which took effect in October, cut maximum thresholds for sulfur dioxide emissions. The government's struggle to curb industrial emissions comes as China has emerged as the largest auto market for new vehicles. Winning concessions from China's politically powerful oil refiners are among the challenges environmental regulators face. Heavily regulated fuel prices have discouraged Chinese refiners from producing cleaner diesel, as the higher costs can't be passed on to consumers. Meanwhile, trucks account for almost one quarter of China's vehicles but contribute a disproportionate share, almost 80%, of vehicle particulate matter. In one example, the Finance Ministry and Chinese refiners are deadlocked in negotiations over subsidies to help offset the higher costs of upgrading and operating refineries that produce cleaner diesel fuel, according to Gong Huiming, transportation director at the Energy Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on U.S.-China energy issues. While particulate matter emitted by vehicles make up a small part of overall particulate matter in China, in dense urban areas, it is almost certainly the highest contributor to human exposure of PM2.5, according to Vance Wagner, a senior researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation. Tighter diesel fuel standards could help reduce vehicle emissions by as much as 15%, according to Yue Xin, head of the vehicle fuels and emissions lab at the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, which is affiliated with the Environmental Protection Ministry. Tang Dagang, director of the Vehicle Emission Control Center, a policy research group also affiliated with the ministry, said pressure increased last year to tighten diesel fuel standards after the State Council, or cabinet, announced stricter air-quality rules. A technical committee plans to release tighter diesel standards soon, said Mr. Tang, who is a member of the 44-person committee, which is overwhelmingly dominated by refining-industry representatives. However, Chinese refineries won't produce cleaner fuel until the higher production costs are addressed by the Finance Ministry, he said, adding that enforcement of existing standards is already poor.   |
| North Korea to boost nuclear deterrent after U.N. rebuke Posted: 23 Jan 2013 08:27 AM PST
(Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council unanimously condemned North Korea's December rocket launch and expanded existing U.N. sanctions, and Pyongyang reacted with a vow to boost the North's military and nuclear capabilities. The resolution said the council "deplores the violations" by North Korea of its previous resolutions, which banned Pyongyang from conducting further ballistic missile and nuclear tests and from importing materials and technology for those programs. It also said the council "expresses its determination to take significant action in the event of a further DPRK (North Korean) launch or nuclear test". North Korea reacted quickly, saying it would hold no more talks on the de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula and would boost its military and nuclear capabilities. "We will take measures to boost and strengthen our defensive military power including nuclear deterrence," its Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency KCNA. The United States' special envoy on North Korea, arriving in Seoul on Wednesday to meet his South Korean counterparts, urged Pyongyang to back down from further provocative actions but left the door open for dialogue. "If they can… begin to take concrete steps to indicate their interests in returning to diplomacy, they may find willing partners in that process," Glyn Davies told reporters. Six-party talks aimed at halting North Korea's nuclear program have involved North Korea, the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. They have been held intermittently since 2003 but have stalled since 2008. Russia's foreign minister said on Wednesday that North Korea should pay heed to the international community and adhere to limits on its missile and nuclear programs. South Korea says the North is technically ready for a third nuclear test, and satellite images show it is actively working on its nuclear site. However, political analysts said they viewed a test as unlikely in the near-term. "North Korea will likely take a sequenced strategy where the first stage response would be more militarily aggressive actions like another missile launch," said Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. There are concerns that North Korea could stage a test using highly enriched uranium for the first time, which would give it a second path to a nuclear bomb and enable it to preserve its stocks of plutonium, which are believed to be sufficient for about 12 nuclear devices. The U.N. resolution added six North Korean entities, including Pyongyang's space agency, the Korean Committee for Space Technology, and the man heading it, Paek Chang-ho, to an existing U.N. blacklist. BLACKLISTED The firms and individuals will all face an international asset freeze, while Paek and the others blacklisted by Tuesday's resolution — the manager of the rocket launch center and two North Korean banking officials — will face a global travel ban. In addition to the space agency, the council blacklisted the Bank of East Land, Korea Kumryong Trading Corp., Tosong Technology Trading Corp., Korea Ryonha Machinery Joint Venture Corp., and Leader (Hong Kong) International. Leader, based in Hong Kong, is an agent for KOMID, a North Korean mining and trading company that was sanctioned in 2009 and is the North's main arms dealer, the resolution said. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice welcomed the resolution, describing it as introducing "new sanctions" against North Korea. "This resolution demonstrates to North Korea that there are unanimous and significant consequences for its flagrant violation of its obligations under previous resolutions," she said. Other diplomats, however, said on condition of anonymity that describing the measures in Tuesday's resolution were new sanctions would be an exaggeration. China, the North's only major diplomatic ally, said on Monday the Security Council needed to pass a cautious resolution on North Korea, adding that this was the best way to ensure regional tensions did not escalate further. Chinese Ambassador Li Baodong said certain elements in the resolution's original draft, which in China's view would "jeopardize" normal trade between North Korea and other countries, had been removed, the official Xinhua news agency reported. "Sanctions and resolutions alone do not work," Xinhua quoted him as saying. "Resolutions must be completed and supplemented by diplomatic efforts." Several diplomats said Beijing's decision to back the resolution sent a strong message to Pyongyang. "It might not be much, but the Chinese move is significant," a council diplomat told Reuters. "The prospect of a (new) nuclear test might have been a game changer (for China)." The United States had wanted to punish North Korea for the rocket launch with a Security Council resolution that imposed entirely new sanctions against Pyongyang, but Beijing rejected that option. China agreed to U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang after North Korea's 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests. December's successful long-range rocket launch, the first to put a satellite in orbit, was a coup for North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong-un. North and South Korea are still technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty.   |
| Philippines Challenges China Maritime Claims at UN Tribunal Posted: 23 Jan 2013 08:32 AM PST
The Philippines plans to challenge China's maritime claims before a United Nations-endorsed tribunal, a move that may raise tensions as the two nations vie for oil, gas and fish resources in contested waters. The Philippines is challenging China's "nine-dash" map of the sea, first published in 1947, that extends hundreds of miles south from China's Hainan Island to the equatorial waters off the coast of Borneo. China claims "indisputable sovereignty" over more than 100 small islands, atolls and reefs that form the Paracel and Spratly Islands. China's assertiveness in disputed waters has raised tensions throughout Asia and generated concern among U.S. officials over access to the South China Sea, where its navy has patrolled since World War II. Vietnam and the Philippines reject China's map of the waters as a basis for joint development of oil and gas. "This move from the Philippines smacks of desperation and is likely to achieve little apart from highlighting its dispute on the international stage but alienating China even more," said Gary Li, head of marine and aviation forecasting at Exclusive Analysis Ltd., recently acquired by Englewood, Colorado-based IHS Inc. (IHS) "Militarily it is weak, and in terms of alliances it has not been able to secure the firm backing of the U.S. as much as Washington's other allies." Squaring Off Chinese and Philippine vessels squared off early last year over the Scarborough Shoal, a disputed land feature in the waters claimed by both countries. The U.S. has been vague about whether a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines covers the islands, whereas it has repeatedly said the East China Sea islands called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese fall under its security treaty with Japan. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this week sent a letter to China's Communist Party leader Xi Jinping through a member of his coalition government. Natsuo Yamaguchi, head of the New Komeito Party, is in Beijing until Jan. 25 and will meet with members of the China-Japan Friendship Association. China has "indisputable sovereignty" over the islands in question and wants to solve the dispute through bilateral negotiation, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a briefing in Beijing today. He said the dispute was caused by the Philippines' "illegal occupation" of some islands and warned against "actions that will complicate or magnify the situation." Clinton Criticized Chinese officials criticized Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for last week saying the U.S. opposes any effort to disrupt Japan's administration of the uninhabited islands, and both Asian countries have sent fighter planes to the area in the past month to monitor the other's movements. The Philippines can seek arbitration with China under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea if it does not involve disputes relating to military activities, historic bays or provisions on delimiting maritime boundaries, according to Robert C. Beckman, director of the Center for International Law at the National University of Singapore. The UN convention "has no provisions on the sovereignty claims to the islands," he wrote in an e-mail. "Therefore, the ruling of the tribunal would have no affect on the sovereignty claims." Bullying, Cheating A paper posted on the website of the Chinese embassy in Manila rejects the jurisdiction of arbitral tribunals to resolve the territorial dispute. "The Philippines claimed that it will defeat China with international law," wrote Wu Hui, a professor at the University of International Relations in Beijing, in the paper on the embassy's website dated May 22. "Yet it should be aware that the law opposes not only the strong countries bullying the weak, but also the small ones cheating." China bases its claims in the South China Sea on "abundant historical and legal evidence." The U.S. and neighboring countries have called on it to clarify the claims according to UNCLOS, which allows countries to claim a continental shelf and 200-mile exclusive economic zone. 'Stand United' The Philippines and Vietnam have sought to explore and develop offshore areas that are also claimed by China, leading to clashes in which Chinese ships have moved against survey vessels. Last year, China National Offshore Oil Corp., the government-owned parent of Cnooc Ltd. (883), invited foreign oil and gas producers to develop disputed areas off Vietnam that Hanoi's leaders had already awarded to companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and OAO Gazprom. (GAZP) The Philippines is open to joint development with China only in accordance with Philippine law, the Foreign Affairs Department said in a statement Jan. 21. The South China Sea is estimated to have as much as 30 billion metric tons of oil and 16 trillion cubic meters of gas, which would account for about one-third of China's oil and gas resources, according to China's official Xinhua News Agency. It also contains fishing resources. Australia, a U.S. ally, will hold joint military exercises and high-level military exchanges with China, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said today. Such exercises may include the U.S., Defense Force chief David Hurley told the Australian newspaper in an interview published Dec. 27. "It is the relationship between China and the U.S. that more than any other will determine the temperature of regional affairs in coming decades," Gillard said in a speech in Canberra. "We remain optimistic about the ability of China and the U.S. to manage change in the region, but their relationship inevitably brings with it strategic competition as China's global interests expand."   |
| Australia Makes Another Pitch to China Posted: 23 Jan 2013 08:35 AM PST
SYDNEY—Australia will attempt to deepen its strategic relations with China and increase military exercises with Asia's largest economy as part of a new national security strategy that Prime Minister Julia Gillard said will boost the country's influence across the region. By boosting its diplomatic reach and stepping up military cooperation, Ms. Gillard vowed to pitch Australia as a "middle power" that can play a role in solving regional disputes. She warned that the rise of China will fuel competition between Beijing and Washington, heightening the risk of a diplomatic miscalculation that sparks new conflict. "We remain optimistic about the ability of China and the U.S. to manage change in the region, but their relationship inevitably brings with it strategic competition as China's global interests expand," said Ms. Gillard during a keynote speech on Wednesday when she unveiled the new national security strategy. "None of these developments of themselves make major power conflict inevitable but they do make the consequences of any conflict more far-reaching and dangerous." The plan includes hosting more military exercises with China. In December, Sydney hosted a flotilla of three Chinese naval vessels in a rare visit to Australian waters. The warships were returning from operations in the Gulf of Aden. "This will include joint military exercises and high-level military exchanges with China, reflecting in defense the cooperative spirit that exists in the other aspects of our friendship," she said. This comes as diplomatic tensions are rising across Asia. Both China and Japan have clashed over a group of small uninhabited islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. The Philippines is taking a territorial dispute with China over the resource-rich South China Sea to an international tribunal, a high stakes gamble in a spat that already involves several countries. And late last year North Korea successfully fired a long-range missile that drew criticism from governments around the world and China landed a jet fighter on its first fully functional aircraft carrier. Australia has been critical of North Korea's nuclear aspirations, but typically steers clear of taking sides in territorial disputes. Warning that "years of fiscal stringency" lies ahead for militaries in the U.K., U.S., Europe and Australia, Ms. Gillard's ruling Labor government implements savings of over five billion Australian dollars (US$5.2 billion) by deferring the purchase of military hardware, shedding civilian staff and cutting back on existing programs. An overview of the country's defense outlook is due to be published later this year.   |
| Best photos from Wiltshire Let’s Get Naked In The Snow Posted: 23 Jan 2013 06:39 AM PST PEOPLE of Wiltshire have been getting naked in the snow. Add this to the list of reasons to love snow. Existing reasons include: no school; horse meat stays freshers for longer; snowmen; even Basildon looks better; snowballs. It's for charity. The women look fun and at ease with themselves, and, as is the way, the men come over a little coy. Look out for the lads hiding their snowmen / balls behind all manner of objects, our favourite being a china Buddha:
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